We now turn overseas to that escalating crisis in the middle east. Dramatic clashes all week over the deaths of one Palestinian and three Israeli teenagers. And now the brutal beating and detention of a palestinian-american teen is sparking new outrage. ABC's Alex Marquardt brings us the latest. Reporter: This is one of the many scenes raising fears this morning that this region could soon be plunged into war. An Israeli policeman pinning down a young teen while another repeatedly kicks and pummels the boy. The victim, his family says, is 15-year-old American Tariq Abu khdeir from Tampa, Florida, released this morning after four days in custody. His face still badly bruised and swollen telling me he's angry and just wants to go home. What would you say to the Israeli police officers if you could speak to them now? I would say why would you attack me like that? At least try to tell me why would you do that to me if I didn't do anything to you? Reporter: It was Tariq's cousin, 16-year-old Mohammed Abu khdeir, who was aducted and burned alive on Wednesday. There have been violent clashes every day since, clashes the police tell ABC news that Tariq participated in, which he denies. These undercover soldiers came out from nowhere and attacked him and beat him. Reporter: Today, suspects were arrested for Mohammed's murder. Israeli media reported believed to be Israeli extremists looking to avenge the recent murders of three jewish teens, which has infuriated and saddened Israel on full display at their funeral. I think many, many people feel what if it was my own child, what if it was my own son or what if it was my own daughter? Reporter: The tension only growing as Israel continues to carry out air strikes on the gaza strip. Israel accuses the Palestinian militant group hamas of being behind the abductions and for failing to stop the rocket fire. Israeli prime minister Benjamin netanyahu said this morning they will do whatever they can to restore calm but so far efforts for a cease-fire have failed as public anger on both sides grows louder. Martha. Our thanks to Alex. We're joined now by the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer. First of all, profound condolences on the deaths of the three jewish teenagers whose bodies with found this week. You heard Alex mention the tape that clearly appears to involve excessive force. Well, I saw that video, and obviously it was very disturbing. Excessive force is not something that we accept in Israel, and there's an investigation by our justice ministry to look into exactly what happened. It's important to understand from what I understand about this particular incident, this boy was one of six boys who had attacked the police with petrol bombs, with molotov cocktails. Our police are under extreme threat in the Jerusalem area. They're facing mobsters and rioters. It doesn't mean that excessive force is acceptable. It's never acceptable. And you would agree that looks like excessive force. Yeah, it looks that way, but I can't rush to judgment. This young American's cousin was also killed. The autopsy showed he was burned alive. I know some arrests have been made. Does this appear to be a revenge killing? Well, the suspicions are in that direction, and it's important to understand our prime minister right when this happened condemned it, said that he would use all means available to bring the perpetrators to justice. We will find and prosecute to the full extent of the law anyone who perpetrated this action. A murder is a murder is a murder whether it's a Jew or an Arab. And what happens next? We have Benjamin netanyahu saying hamas will pay. You've already started air strikes. What's the next step here? Well, first of all, the responsibility of the government of Israel led by prime minister netanyahu is to bring quiet and security to the citizens of the south. We have a million citizens who are facing rocket fire every single day. We've got 150 rockets that have been fired from the time of those kidnappings. This is just going to be back and forth. It's not a back and forth. It's not a cycle of violence. What we have is a terror organization in gaza that has fired thousands of rockets at Israel's cities and is firing rockets at us today. No government around the world, no country around the world would tolerate the firing of rockets at their city. Israel is surgically striking at the terrorists in order to each Palestinian civilians out of harm's way. I want to move to Iraq. We saw the release of a tape this weekend of the leader of Isis there, Al baghdadi, standing calmly in front of a congregation in mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. This man has a $10 million price tag on his head. What does this tell you about the future of Iraq and what will this mean for the middle east and Israel? Well, it's a big concern for Israel, and it's obviously for the United States of America. What you see happening in the middle east is a real fight between radical shias led by Iran and their main proxy hezbollah and radical Sunnis which include Isis, which includes hamas as I talked about in gaza and Al Qaeda and includes all these groups. And it's a religious conflict right now where both sides want to be the king of an islamic -- Do you see an all-out war? I hope not. We hope that we can take action against the most extreme elements. There's a lot of moderates in the Arab world, as well, and the moderates are your allies and it's important to strengthen them and it's important to encourage them. The ones who suffer the most from the likes of Isis and the likes of hezbollah are actually the Arabs in the region. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. Up next, Washington state

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

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